Things don't go the way you want much of the time when elk hunting.
In open country I'd be fine with a single hole and huge internal damage. In thick steep country, two holes leaking is best if you don't drop them.
I've been using Woodleigh Weld Cores out of my .338WM for years. I think they're better than Partitions. Absolutely better than Barnes from what I've seen. Which admittedly isn't a bunch compared to some.
I do have the advantage of living in Colorado and seeing/hearing about the outcome of LOTS of elk hunts. I would summarize what I've learned as follows:
The BEST bullet designs have near-100% weight retention and limited but very reliable expansion - soft lead in front and then some sort of mechanical expansion-stopper in the rear + bonding:
Swift A-Frame
Trophy Bonded/Bear Claw/Terminal Ascent/Edge TLR
Northfork Bonded
The next tier often give the same performance as the top tier, but have some sort of issue that occasionally crops up:
Partitions (shed weight in front of the partition due to lack of bonding)
Weldcores (aren't expansion limited, and even with bonding sometimes shed weight if driven too fast - under-load them)
Accubond (aren't expansion limited, shed weight)
Barnes X/TSX/TTSX/LRX (sometimes fail to expand at all even with "sufficient" impact velocity)
Then there are the basic cup and core hunting bullets that shed too much weight and rarely exit on bulls and shoulder shots but are still acceptable. These do better in bigger cartridges - by the time you get to a 300gr .375 H&H or whatever they probably exit.
Then in last place that should never be used there are various frangible bullets that just plain come apart (some times with a non-expanded tail):
Berger, Sierra SMK, Accubond LR, Scenar etc.
Hawk (nominally bonded, but in reality so soft and prone to shedding weight I would not recommend them except for rifles with soft steel)
In general you want a bullet with a SD of 0.3 or higher, but in some cartridges that's not available or the shapes and BCs suck. If you can't hit 0.3 SD, really try to at least stay above 0.27. With the mono-metal bullets you generally go lighter though because the penetrate so deep and have trouble with expansion. A bit faster & lighter helps.
Now, here's the thing, it only costs a couple bucks extra to hunt with stuff from the top category. Think about that in comparison to what your tag and fuel cost and what your time is worth. There are factory loads for every one except the Northforks in most common cartridges. You're stupid not to hunt with the best possible bullet because the cost is so low and the cost of lost game is so high.
